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Saturday, August 04, 2012

Brunch Review: Mrs S, Maylands

I have heard so many people talk about Mrs S in Maylands, I
was excited to try it out and had high expectations. I arrived at 10:25am and
put my name down for a table for 2. There were several people on the list
before us, but the waitress seemed positive about our chances of getting in
quickly.

Unfortunately, we waited outside in the wind for 50 minutes
and by the time we finally got in, we were only just in time to order breakfast
before the 11:30am cut off. By this time we were quite hungry and annoyed.

Our meals:

The Scoring

Menu variety / creativity: 7.5/10. Not a lengthy menu, but
they do have some creative options (notably the rice pudding, apple and rhubarb
crumble with yoghurt and cornbread with eggs, bacon and maple syrup). I was a
little disappointed in the sweet options (nothing appealed to me that much),
but I think the menu might change regularily.

Taste: 6/10. I chose the banana bread with pistachio cream, and my friend
had the apple and rhubarb crumble. We were both unimpressed. The banana bread
was very sweet and too heavy (it really needed some fresh strawberries or
something on the side to balance it out), and my friend thought that the
crumble was sickly sweet too. Perhaps we chose badly, but at an impressive café
there aren’t any bad menu choices.

Coffee: 7.5/10. Pretty good.

Setting / location: 8.5/10. Lovely indoor décor with a cute vintage vibe. Fresh
flowers, a large communal table, mismatched chairs and kitsch home wares for
sale all add to the character. I love how the menus are inside vintage Little
Golden books.

Service: 7.5/10. Once we got inside, the service was fast. You order at the
counter and they bring the meals out to you.

They need to be more informed about the expected waiting
time (We didn’t ask specifically what the expected wait was, but someone who arrived
just after us did and was told ‘It could be 20 minutes, or it could be 5
minutes’. It wasn’t close to either!) and maybe work out a better waiting area
(we were all crowding the sidewalk outside, making it hard for pedestrians to
get past).

Price: 8/10. Reasonably priced, with my banana bread coming in at $10 and a
regular coffee only $3.50 (cheap for Perth).

Verdict: Given the hype, I was so disappointed. If we had not had to wait so
long and were able to order and eat at a more leisurely pace, perhaps our
experience would have been markedly different. After the wait, we really wanted to be blown away by the food and
coffee but experienced the opposite. I definitely wouldn’t bother with this
place again unless we could get a table immediately.